


I Should Go

by LadyLoreLitany



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Past Character Death, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLoreLitany/pseuds/LadyLoreLitany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ripley is gone, but she left Kaidan one last message.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Should Go

Liara pressed the disc into his hand after they put Ripley’s name on the wall. “She left it for you,” she said quietly.

Now he sat in the quarters that had once been hers, staring numbly at the screen, the disc sitting on the desk in front of him. She was a hero. She had saved everyone. He should have been proud of that.

But all he cared about was the fact that she was gone.

He had felt it before, after the Normandy had exploded. She had been gone then too, and he thought he wouldn’t survive it. Physically, he had. But emotionally, mentally, he had never really recovered. And now she was gone again, and every cell in his body just wanted to be with her.

Before that feeling could overtake him, he slipped the disc into the drive. The monitor hummed to life and her message started.

She sat in the same chair he was in now, her chin-length red hair unrestrained and swirling around her face. Her bright green eyes were wide and slightly rimmed in pink. He had seen Liara pressing messages into other hands and assumed she had recorded them all in the same night.

Almost a full minute passed before she finally spoke.

“You’re the most important one,” she began. “Part of me wants to tell you that I don’t know what to say, but I do. I’m just afraid to say it.” She took a deep breath before looking right at the screen. He stared right back at her, drinking her in for what he knew would be the last time.

“I love you,” she said. “You know that. I know you do. But I need you to hear me say it, because I don’t know how this is going to end. Ever since Cerberus brought me back, I’ve felt like I’ve been living on borrowed time. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have. But I love you, and I need you to hear it from me one more time.” Tears began to fall silently down her face as she continued to speak.

“When you wrote to me after Horizon, you asked if I remembered the night we spent together before Ilos. You asked if it meant anything to me.” Her voice choked up as she started to cry harder. His hands gripped the edge of his chair as tears started to run down his face too.

“Kaidan, that night meant everything to me. I don’t any other way to describe it. I’d wanted you for so long then, and nothing’s changed. I still want you now. Even after Cerberus. Even after Horizon. But I understand. I understand that I hurt you, and I’m sorry. I wish I knew how to fix it. Maybe it can’t be fixed.” She could no longer speak through her tears, and she grabbed a tissue from outside the video’s frame and blotted her eyes while she took a deep breath.

His own tears intensified, and he didn’t bother to wipe them away. He knew what night this was. He had never asked her where the tear tracks on her face had come from. He had been focused solely on their reconciliation. Now he understood. She had spent the evening saying goodbye to all her friends before he had showed up at her door. 

She had regained her composure on the screen, and she looked sheepishly into the camera. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have done all of these in one night, but I wanted to get it over with. I hope I don’t even need them, but… I can’t let something happen and risk leaving all these words unsaid.”

He knew what would have come next if she were any other person. She would ask him to move on. She would ask him to be happy, and to live a full life even if it was without her. But she wasn’t any other person, and she knew those things wouldn’t comfort him.

“Fuck, Kaidan,” she finally whispered, running her hands through her hair. “I don’t even know what else to say. I love you. I’m sorry that it wasn’t enough.”

He reached a trembling hand out to the screen and touched the image of her face. “It was enough,” he choked out, “but you already knew that before…” His better judgment prevented him from finishing the sentence.

On the video, there was a knock, and Kaidan heard his own voice. “Shepard?” it said hesitantly. He remembered that at that moment, he’d been wondering whether or not he should use her first name.

On the screen, her face lit up. The change was extraordinary. She no longer looked tired or sad. She just looked hopeful, and her eyes danced with anticipation.

“You’re at my door,” she said, biting her lip, not bothering to contain her excitement. “I should go.”

It was that phrase that undid him. Three simple words that she had used so often that they were practically meaningless, but to him, they were just a reminder of everything he had had and subsequently lost. A ragged sob broke from him, and he wrapped his arms around his chest, wishing they were her arms instead. “You should be here!” He wept through the words. “You saved us all, and the price shouldn’t have been your life!” 

On the camera, she reached forward, and her image disappeared. They were the last new words she would ever speak, and even though he could watch them over and over again, the magic in them was gone. He would never see her again. He would never hold her again. And what was this new world worth, if he didn’t have her to share it with?

There was nothing else he could do. So Kaidan put his head in his hands and cried.


End file.
